Ten Missing Children

by Antony J Woodward

  “You must have seen something. Jim, I need to know who the fuck took her!” Terry sounded drunk. That shameful sad-angry sort of drunk.

  “I saw nothing. The only thing I got is he knew what he was doing. He moved like a soldier. Like a man with a military background…”

  Terry took another shot of whiskey. It was something, even if it felt useless.

  “Stop it Terry, it’s not your fault. And you know it isn’t…”

  “Isn’t it? She was in my care Jim! My care…”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s not any of theirs’ fault either!” he gestured to the board with a broad sweep of an arm. “It’s nobody‘s fault. All that matters is we catch the sonofabitch. Catch him before…” Jim couldn’t finish the sentence. It didn’t need saying. It was an unspoken truth of the board that all these children were dead. This wasn’t a kidnapping, there was no interest in keeping these children alive. There was no ransom to be paid.

  Who knew what the sick fuck was abducting them for…

  Neither Jim nor Terry wanted to consider that the abductor was a sexual predator.

  “And how do I do that Jim? We got fuck all. Not a single fucking clue to go on…”

  The sound of the garage door silenced their conversation. Terry didn’t turn around, he merely glared hotly ahead. It was a surprise that he wasn’t boring holes in the board with lasers.

  The portraits of the children stung. Now sweet forgetful Christine was one of them.

  Terry didn’t want to put her picture on the board.

  Before Terry realised it, two strong arms were coming around him.

  Then just when Terry didn’t think he could feel any worse, he heard the most soul crushing sound of his life. He heard the father of a missing child, his husband, breakdown on his shoulder. The sound of Matt’s sob would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.

  “She’s gone…” he roared into Terry’s shoulder.

  Terry’s instinct was to pull Matt close, to try and ease the burden of this pain.

  He knew nothing would help, there was no way for Terry to fix this pain.

  They were experiencing exactly what all those poor families had gone through, what they were still going through. Only they had it worse, because they knew they were without hope. Their own daughter had been taken and they had nothing to go on.

  “Matt?” It was a voice that sounded alien in the private surrounds of the garage. “Terry?”

  Both men took a moment before they lifted their heads.

  The Captain was a large man. Tall, imposing and authoritative. He was black and had a boyishly attractive face. His grey sideburns and hair was always smartly clipped and presented.

  He always struck Terry as a bear, cuddly but fierce if needed be. He felt he had always had a good rapport with the man.

  He looked physically haunted by today’s events. He took a moment to carefully select his words.

  “We’re going to be leaving shortly. Give you guys some privacy,” he announced. He stepped further into the garage, slowly becoming aware of the crude board filled with details of the case.

  Usually his voice was soft, soothing even. But it didn’t feel anything of the sort as he spoke.

  “Matt. I’m taking you off the case,”

  “But Sir!”

  “No, you’re emotionally involved. You know the rules, it’s against protocol…”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  The question hung in the air. What was they supposed to do? Where do they go from here? None of the three men, and even the dead one still stood with them, knew the answer to the question.

  “Please Sir, I need to help. I can’t sit at home…” Matt begged.

  Terry turned his attention to the captain. “You know he can’t not. You know he won’t stay out of it. Neither of us will. Aren’t you better keeping him on board and keeping him occupied…?”

  The Captain chewed his cheek. He felt conflicted. He was very friendly with Matt and Terry, he understood Terry’s point. Hell, he even agreed with it. But if he kept Matt on board, he’d be violating policies and he could be in a ton of shit.

  He looked from Matt and Terry to the board. He knew Matt, he knew he wouldn’t give in. He’d continue the investigation outside of the police. He would become a loose cannon. That could be a bigger problem than if he was on board.

  Captain Gregson was also desperate. Eight kids had been abducted and they had nothing to go on. The Smiths had been a false-start. A dead end.

  “Ok, but I’m keeping a close eye on both of you…”

  He sighed. He hoped he didn’t grow to regret this.

  “You’ll do nothing without Raven, absolutely nothing. I can’t have you becoming a loose cannon Matt…”

  Matt nodded. “Thank you Sir…”

  “And you…” he trailed off. He didn’t know what to say about Terry. What was there to say. He had no control over him, he was a consultant. A paper-thin allusion to a psychic. He didn’t even know how Terry did what he did.

  “…Don’t make me regret this,” he turned and walked out.

  “Dad? Terry?” Bridget crossed him at the threshold. “What’s going on?”

  She was confused. It was odd to come home and find your home crawling with the police department. “Where’s Christine?”

  “Mum, I want you to pack some things and I want you to take Bridget. Go out of town, find a hotel or something. Tell nobody where’ve you gone…” Matt ignored his child and turned his attention on his mother as she walked in behind her.

  “What’s happening?” Bridget looked frightened suddenly. She sensed very adult things were going off around her and she wasn’t privy to a single detail of it. Matt followed his mother out of the garage. Bridget faltered on the spot.

  It appeared that Matt had sidestepped telling his daughter the truth, and so too had his mother.

  “Come here,” Terry gestured her over. He climbed off the exercise bike and squatted to his knees. He was now face to face with his frightened stepdaughter.

  “You know there’s been a very bad person stealing children?” Bridget found his red eyes and unabashed tears frightening and already she was beginning to cry herself. She knew something bad was coming her way.

  She nodded.

  “That bad person broke into our home last night and took Christine…”

  Bridget took a second to respond, she recoiled and shook her head. Her eyes filled up and instantly she began crying.

  “No…” She sobbed.

  “So I need you to go with Nana and hide away, until me and Daddy catch this bad person.”

  “Am I in danger?”

  “I don’t know darling. I just know this bad person is very bad. We want you to be safe and its not safe at home…”

  She nodded and wiped her eyes. It was like the little girl before him suddenly matured a little. She put a brave face on and nodded again.

  She brushed her hair behind her ears, then put her arms around Terry.

  “You’re gonna get this bad person aren’t you…?”

  “Yes. Yes I promise…” Terry vowed. He hugged her back. Squeezing her little frame.

  When he opened his eyes he saw Matt lingering in the doorway with his mother. They were packed and ready to go.

  -----------------------------------

  Life felt pretty hollow and it was a definite struggle to keep striving on. Terry was stood in the police station and he still felt numb. He and Matt had gotten very drunk last night, the hangover was only just fading from his temples. It was five pm Tuesday. It had been a day since Christie’s abduction. A whole day.

  It was a grim fact.

  Terry had spent the day investigating the eighth family on the list. Well, the seventh on the newly edited list. In the eighth position was the name LOGAN. It was his family that was the eighth set of victims. It was haunting to see his own name on the list.

  The Smiths weren’t the seventh, they weren’t even part of the case a
nymore.

  Terry cradled his head in his hands and felt the need to sleep hit him. He wasn’t sure whether it was because he was tired or because he just didn’t want to deal with the world anymore.

  He’d spent the afternoon with the Nicholson’s. They too were a dead end. The same exact scenario played out. Rhino tranquilizers, abducted child.

  They were a nice family and he tried his hardest to be warm and endearing. The truth was he felt hollow, too hollow to engage with other people, but the alternative of sitting at home doing nothing was impossible to comprehend.

  He needed to be busy.

  “Terry,” Matt came into the room. There was a strange mix of emotions across his face. He had seen a disorientating flurry of emotions on his husband’s face in the last twenty four hours. He’d seen the man fall to the very depths of his soul, then watched him pick himself up and concentrate on his work. He watched a man turn sorrow into anger, anger to drive his work. Anger to sharpen his focus and save his daughter.

  He had heard his lover ask the impossible questions; why Christine? Why our family? Why any of them? He’d watched Matt tear himself apart wondering if he was to blame, was it his admission on TV? Had he unknowingly invited the abductor to steal their child? There was a lot of theories as he tried to make sense of the illogical. As he tried to find a pattern to madness.

  Now, there was a queer expression on his face. He looked slightly excited, a little hopeful and it mixed with a dark sense of vengeance. Terry hadn’t been privy to what had occupied Matt all day, there had been some development that he’d involved himself in.

  “We got someone…”

  “What?”

  “Last night, they found another child.”

  “He abducted two?”

  “Yes, but he didn’t do it last night. Nobody raised an alarm because Janet Brown had an allergic reaction to the Methoxetamine. She died and nobody knew until the neighbours noticed the smell…”

  “When was this?”

  “They’re saying it’s five days…”

  “Jesus Christ… Nobody noticed a woman was dead for five days?”

  “She has no family,”

  “And the child?”

  “The school tried to contact her but obviously couldn’t get through…”

  It seemed impossible in this modern heavily interconnected day and age that someone would go unnoticed for five days.

  “What’s the child’s name…”

  “Erm…” Matt consulted the file in his hand, “Lewis,”

  “So we have nine children… And that explains the considerable gap between child number 6 and 7,” Terry noted aloud.

  It had been a peculiarity, there wasn’t a strict timing between the abductions, but it did average at around four days. With the Smiths taken out of the equation it had left a considerable gap where nothing happened.

  It wasn’t a particularly useful revelation. If anything it only illustrated that they had three days left till the next abduction. There was a clock ticking somewhere.

  “Well, we got lucky. Janet Brown had recently broke up with her ex, a game reserve warden in Africa…”

  Terry’s eyes narrowed.

  “He would have the means to acquire Methoxetamine…” Matt added.

  “And where is he?”

  “Raven has just picked him up at the airport. He was about to board a flight to Africa…”

  Terry didn’t feel Matt’s excitement. It seemed too convenient, seemed too implausible. Why would this guy tranq Janet Brown just to abduct her child? Before he could pose the question to Matt he was gone. His mouth opened but nothing came out.

  It didn’t make sense. Why go to all that effort?

  It didn’t make sense…

  ---------------------------------------

  Germaine Jackson was sat in the interview room looking more and more increasingly anxious as Detective Raven interviewed him. Matt and Terry were stood on the other side of the mirror listening in.

  Germaine was black, of African descent. Under different circumstances Terry would be interested to hear what brought him to England. To Manchester especially, the homeland of rain and city smog. He was dressed in casual clothes, he’d removed the baseball cap and revealed a shaved head. He was completely clean shaven, he looked like a man who took pride in his appearance. He was sweating under the intense scrutiny and Terry felt sorry for him. He knew that Germaine was innocent, he could sense it. Hell, he could see it. The guy didn’t understand why he was being suspected in the death of an ex girlfriend. He demonstrated genuine shock at her death and looked haunted by the fact her son was missing.

  Raven stood sharply, she was playing bad cop. Did that make Matt good cop when he sat in on investigations?

  Raven was also black, a large boned woman. She came from Jamaican ancestry and could cook a mean Jamaican curry. Mean being the operative word, it could be rebottled as napalm such was its potency. She had dressed in a sharp metal grey suit with a purple blouse. Her dreadlocks were pulled into a loose ponytail. She and Terry had something of a precarious friendship. A wary, but genuine, friendship that neither of them knew how to properly address. She was Matt’s partner, so befriending the spouse was perhaps against the rules.

  Yet still, they met for a cheesecake and wine night every so often.

  The idea of cheesecake and wine seemed like an unfathomable concept to Terry at present.

  “He didn’t do it…” Terry whispered.

  “We don’t know that…”

  “Yes we do Matt… Why the hell would he tranquilize his own ex just to abduct her child?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “And what connects him to the others? Nothing except he has access to Methoxetamine, which I guess the search warrant hasn’t turned up any yet…”

  “Don’t you wanna catch this guy?” Matt growled angrily. He turned Terry around and demanded eye contact.

  “Of course I do Matt, I just want the right guy…”

  “We might have him…”

  “But we haven’t… He’s not the perp, he’s just a guy with a coincidence… and you know it…”

  “All I know is my daughter is out there missing, I have to explore every avenue!”

  “I know Matt, but this one is wrong. You can’t make someone guilty of a crime they didn’t commit.”

  Matt suddenly turned away. He was angry, seething in fact. He was so desperate for the answer, he had lost focus. He was spiralling off and placing all his hopes on a square peg fitting a triangular hole.

  “Matt. I know what’s at stake,” Terry closed in. He placed a reassuring hand on his arm.

  “No you don’t…”

  Now it was time for Terry to turn Matt around. Terry looked angry himself.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what it means…” Matt angrily deflected.

  “You mean that I don’t know it feels because Christine is not my flesh and blood? Are you saying that I don’t know what it feels like? That she isn’t my daughter?”

  Matt didn’t answer, he looked angrily past his husband.

  “Well fuck you Matt, fuck you…” Terry wanted to punch him. He felt wounded to his very soul and the tears that crept to his eyes were only a fraction of the emotion he felt slammed with. He stepped back, managing to reign in the desire to punch him across the jaw. How goddamn dare he!

  He turned sharply, exited the room and slammed the door behind him. The station blurred around him and he lost sense of himself.

  He came to when he was sat in his car, his hand on the keys in the ignition.

  He didn’t know whether to cry, or scream.

  CHAPTER TEN:

  Terry could smell incense as he stepped around the shop. He was in dire need of a distraction and this spiritual shop had drawn him in. He’d been driving down the road, driving nowhere in particular when he felt compelled to pull up and enter.

  It was Wednesday and it was now two days s
ince Christine’s abduction.

  Germaine Jackson had been released, he was innocent just as Terry had concluded. He’d not seen Matt, not since the fight in the station. He’d not come home and Terry had been pleased. He wasn’t sure he could control the rage that ebbed through him.

  He had never been so wounded in all of his life.

  Even thinking of Matt’s words made his fists clench and his teeth grate.

  Terry dispelled the thoughts, allowed his mind to empty and just feel the ebb of life flow around him. His hands trailed over stones, his fingertips pressing gently over various shiny lumps of rock.

  The smell of incense was heady, heavy and thick.

  His eye was caught by a portly Buddha statue. It was crafted from black stone.

  He plucked it up, appraising it. He had no interest in buying it, he was just servant to his whims.

  The last time he’d stepped foot in a spiritual shop he’d bought his current tarot deck. The shop had long been shut, like most spiritual shops they seemed to spring up and disappear just as quickly as they appeared. He hadn’t been aware of this particular shop. Purple Mist. What a tacky name. Was it genuine the orientation towards cheap names? Was it part of the mysticism of spiritual shops?

  He replaced the Buddha.

  He spied a woman pass somewhere behind him, but he paid her no heed.

  He found himself drawn to the Tarot decks. There was a saying that tarot decks chose you, if one called out to you then you should purchase it. He prayed that as his eyes trailed over them he didn’t feel that little tug in his heart. He wanted distraction, not another set of cards.

  He heard a door lock, slowly he turned. The woman he’d paid no attention to was turning the shop sign over. She was closing shop.

  She was tall, of average build. Dressed in a long flowing gown made from long strips of brown fabric stitched together. Her hair was tightly curly and frizzy, she kept it short but it obviously had a mind of its own. Her weathered face softened at the sight of Terry. She was wearing turquoise earrings and they dangled, reflecting light like little disco balls.